Ryanair forces boy with broken leg to stand on flight from Italy

A boy of 14 in a plaster cast from his ankle to his thigh was forced to stand for nearly two hours on a Ryanair jet.

Tom Cannon could not bend his leg but cabin crew refused to give him an extra seat so he could sit down.

Adults who were with Tom claimed staff were "rude and offensive".

His parents have complained to the budget airline about its "inhumane" treatment of the boy.

Tom's ordeal began when he was playing for a Hertfordshire youth team at an international football tournament in Milan.

He was stretchered off the pitch with a knee injury and was taken to hospital for emergency treatment. He then travelled to the airport to fly home.

One of the team organisers, Chris Hollands,who was with his own 16-year-old son Jack, said check-in staff at Bergamo Airport were "not at all sympathetic" and "reluctantly" provided a wheelchair.

He said: "Tommy was in a significant amount of pain so we sat him in the first available seats on the plane, in the first row, whilst we herded the rest of the boys on to the aircraft.

"A stewardess said, 'He cannot sit there. Move him now', without any further explanation. She did not speak directly to any particular person but shouted this as an order.

"She was extremely rude. She said, 'If you wanted an extra seat, you should have paid for it.' It was astounding and I could not believe what I had heard.

"She was unsympathetic, arrogant, rude and unaccommodating, even after hearing the story of our plight."

Matters got even worse when the flight captain intervened.

Mr Hollands said: "I explained that I was trying to arrange for the boy to be as comfortable as possible, but he cut me off midsentence and told me to 'stop it' and to 'shut up'.

'He told me that if I did not stop I would be removed from the plane. I was flabbergasted." During take-off and landing, staff insisted Tom was strapped precariously upright with a seat-belt. He stood for the rest of the one hour 40 minute flight back to Luton.

Another team organiser, Paul Gibbon, said Ryanair's behaviour was "inhumane".

Mr Gibbon stressed: "We were not Club 18-30 type people, we were not drunk or rowdy, we were just concerned parents trying to accommodate an injured 14-year-old boy."

He said there were at least three or four spare places on the 189-seat Boeing 737-800 which, with juggling, could have given Tom the extra room he needed.

He said: "We shuffled around to give a mother and child seats together. But after the rollicking we got from the stewardesses and the captain we were too intimidated to make a reasonable request to move people around again. The staff could and should have organised it."

Tom, a pupil at Verulam School in St Albans, said: "The Ryanair people were a bit hurtful.

"It was physically impossible for me to sit in just one seat. I couldn't bend my leg so I couldn't sit down. I was in a row of three seats. But only the one next to me was free - and it wasn't enough to take my plastered leg.

"So I just had to stand for the whole flight. It was very uncomfortable."

Tom's mother Mary Cannon, a health and safety manager, said she was appalled by Ryanair's "rude and contemptible behaviour" and "disgraceful attitude".

In a letter to the airline, she wrote: "It seems that commercial greed and your shareholders are the only concerns of your company, with the customer being a necessary evil and inconvenience."

A spokesman for Ryanair said: "We apologise to Mr Cannon that our handling agents in Bergamo did not follow the correct procedure by advising our cabin crew in advance of his broken leg.

"However, we are pleased that our cabin crew were nonetheless able to provide him with special seating arrangements while on board and full assistance disembarking at Luton Airport."